


At arm's length, something irreducible

by afterandalasia



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aman (Tolkien), Blacksmithing, Crossdressing, Cunnilingus, Dom Galadriel | Artanis, F/M, Half-Uncle/Half-Niece Incest, Infidelity, Noldor (Tolkien), POV Fëanor | Curufinwë, Possessive Behaviour, Possessive Galadriel | Artanis, Quenya Names (Tolkien), Rough Sex, Sex in a Smithy, Vaginal Sex, Woman on Top, Years of the Trees (Tolkien), Young Galadriel | Artanis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-03
Updated: 2020-02-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:35:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22544887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afterandalasia/pseuds/afterandalasia
Summary: Artanis comes first to Fëanor for instruction in the ways of working metal - but comes more frequently for the pleasure she finds in him
Relationships: Fëanor | Curufinwë/Galadriel | Artanis
Comments: 9
Kudos: 34





	At arm's length, something irreducible

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amyfortuna (elwinfortuna)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elwinfortuna/gifts).



> So, uh, this was actually originally inspired by amyfortuna's 2016 Smut Swap request (*waves to amyfortuna*) but since I spent a load of time that year as the person making the searchable spreadsheet of kinks, I didn't have time to write it then. And then half a sex scene sat in my WIPs for ages. But I desperately wanted to finish this work and gift it, so I have now managed to actually complete it.
> 
> Title from poem [The Forge](https://engpoetry.com/michael-burch/the-forge/) by Michael Burch.

The light of the forge plays on the lines of Artanis’s body as beautifully as ever Fëanor thought it would. The men’s clothes that she wears stick to her skin with sweat, and her hold is firm through the thick gloves that she wears on both the iron and the hammer. Fëanor steps in close behind her and takes hold of her right elbow.

“Not so hard,” he says into her ear, so close that he can all but taste her skin. “You must guide the iron, not control it.”

His hand slides along her forearm, and Artanis stiffens at the touch; he feels it, the way that her body tautens against him, her hip against his hip, her hand clenching slightly as his closes around it.

“Are you guiding, Fëanáro,” she says, tilting her head just enough that he can see her face lit and her eyelashes like bolts of fire. Her eyes shine blue even in the red of the smithy. “Or controlling?”

She twists suddenly to face him, using the wrist that he holds to pull him close, until he must bow his eyes to look at her. The proud Noldorin lines of her face have not been softened by the Telerin blood of her mother, and he can see echoes of his own features there, not just in her brow and the set of her chin but in the light in her eyes and the intelligence, the strength of will, that smoulders there.

He makes no attempt to remove his hand from her wrist even as she shifts back her arm so that he is pulled in to press against her. His other hand grips at the edge of the anvil, the metal cold beneath his fingertips.

“Do you fear being controlled?”

“I need not,” she says. “It will not happen.”

He believes her. He has believed her since first she broached the doors of his forge, young and fearless and beautiful, to say that neither her father nor her uncle would allow her to enter a forge and learn the ways of those who were making weapons among the Noldor. They did not approve of weapons beyond hunting, she said. Her gaze had been a challenge and a warning: they did not approve of him, either.

“No,” he says quietly, “I think not.”

There is a smirk on her lips as she kisses him, imperious and demanding, and he is not sure that there is any other from whom he would accept a fraction of her arrogance. But it does not matter, for there is nothing of her that could be changed without breaking her perfection, and that he would never do.

He pulls the gloves from her hands, and the iron lies forgotten on the anvil as she pushes him back, the press of her body enough to guide him, the heady thrill of her touch able to control him more than he would ever admit.

He suspects that she knows anyway.

Her hands are hot and damp as she pushes him backwards, until his back bumps against the wall of the forge and she presses her palms to his chest with strength that has been burgeoning in her for years, that started off in sports and games before she took to the forge, and to the sword. Teeth graze his tongue, her mouth keeping up its pressure, keeping up the drive of their contact.

For a moment, he pushes back against her, struggling with his own strength, his own work-hardened muscles; he pushes off the wall, surging against her, grabbing one of her wrists again and wrapping the other hand around the side of her neck, a threat which they both knew he could not bring himself to mean. But his fingers dig into the back of her neck, his thumb a pressure beneath her jaw, and her lips shine as they part to him, red as blood in the forgelight.

“Is this all you can muster?” she breathes, a hint of a taunt in her voice. With a sharp thrust of her hand, she shrugs off his grip, then grabs the very front of his shirt and whips them both around, dragging him against her as her back slams against the wall. Even now, with his weight against her chest and his hips grinding against hers, it is her teeth that nip at his lip, her hands that tug his shirt free of his breeches and slide over the heated skin beneath.

“Have you not learnt what I can muster?” his words are almost lost beneath her lips, but he feels her laugh low and throaty, her nails brushing over his stomach in the promise that she would leave her marks upon him, if she could. As it is, the only marks she can leave are upon his soul, but those she leaves in multitude.

With a faint growl, he crushes against her, kissing her forcefully but still never quite able to feel as if he is the one in control.

There is a bed in the forge, little more than a hard cot with a blanket cast over it, where Fëanor has been known to snatch short hours of sleep in those times when his work most consumes him. At least, that was what it was first put there for; now it has another purpose, more often than not.

He tries to pull Artanis towards the bed, but she tugs sharply on the waist of his breeches, slamming his hips to hers. It is painful against his stirring erection, and he knows full well that she is aware of it.

“Such words, Fëanáro,” she says, and the words pour like gold from her lips as she pulls away to strip his shirt from his body. He snatches open the front of her tunic in response, fastenings giving way beneath the wrench of his hands to reveal the sweat-dampened shirt beneath. It clings to her skin, and by the light of the forge he realises that she wears no underthings beneath, that the linen clings to the curve of her breasts and her nipples hard atop them. Artanis puts one hand beneath his chin to drag his gaze back to the crystal-silver of her eyes. “Is this the only use now to which you put that clever tongue?”

It is a challenge, for her a shameless one, but with a growl he pushes her back against the wall and kisses her, letting her feel what his tongue can do, coaxing from her soft low moans amid her panting breaths. With his hands he undoes the men’s breeches that she wears, worn tight enough that often her form through them has driven him half to distraction, and pushes them roughly down as he drops to his knees before her.

Artanis laughs, and with a growl Fëanor pushes her hips back against the wall, fingertips bruising-hard against her skin. Unlike him, she does not need to worry for marks. The skin of her thigh tastes of sweat as he drags his mouth against it, and her fingers wind into his hair but only as warning, warning and a thrill that runs down his spine to pool between his hips as he brings his mouth to her.

A gasp escapes her lips as he presses his tongue to her hot skin, her desire writ clear in the sounds that leave her tongue as clearly as the taste that meets his. His words have been no boast, for he knows that there is more than one skill yet in his tongue, and to her pleasure he applies himself with quick movements of his mouth. Perhaps it is his infatuation with her that makes her taste so sweet upon his tongue, as if gold and silver light trace over her skin as well as in her hair. But perhaps not, when each fine downy hair upon her thigh is of that same silver-gold, and every curl that adorns her sex is like the finest work of art that ever his fingers and his tongue have traced and parted. It would not surprise him were there some magic in her skin, in her very blood.

The slip of her fingers through his hair, and the way that the muscles tauten in her thigh, betray her as much as do the gasps in her breath and the increasingly wet flush of her skin against his tongue. But as she shudders, as he feels her pleasure build, he draws away and straightens up again, his hands still pushing her hips against the wall, and when he speaks his lips brush slick against hers.

“What think you now of the skill of my tongue?” Fëanor breathes, and he feels as much as hears the growl in Artanis’s throat before she musters a reply.

“I think you still do not use it to its fullest potential,” she replies, and when he kisses her she responds fiercely, her mouth crushing against his.

When she pulls her mouth back, she shoves him away also, and the tilt of her chin in the direction of the bed is more than enough to signal her intentions. Fëanor sheds his clothes as he backs towards the bed, knowing each inch of the smithy so easily that he needs not to look to know where to place his steps. He kicks off his boots in easy motions, undoes his belt, and slips down his breeches and underthings even as he seats himself upon the bed.

“Your movements speak of practice,” she says, somewhere between admiring and mocking, but she peels off her shirt and casts it aside before pushing her breeches down the rest of the way and stepping out of them and her boots in one go. “Do you often unclothe yourself so?”

The thick braid of her hair falls over her shoulder, glittering and all but glowing in the light like living fire wrought into her, as if the light of her fëa shines out. But even that cannot hold his eyes, and he lets his gaze follow the flow of her lean body, the shadows beneath her breasts, the curve of her hip lit by the fire, the spark of the wetness on her thighs.

“Only when I cannot find another who will do it for me,” he replied.

The laughter she gives is its own reward, but in a few strides she is upon him, casting herself astride his thighs and crushing their mouths back together again. He catches at her thighs as she cups his cheeks, her thumbs pressing almost painfully against the line of his jaw, but the first brush of his cock against the skin of her thigh is enough to make him groan against her mouth.

“I have practice of my own in mind,” she whispers, poison-sweet against his lips.

She pushes him back against the bed, and it is willingly that he goes as she straddles him. Without air to tend it, he can tell that the forge is just beginning to dim, but there is more than light enough to glory in her beauty. Artanis’s hands trace down his front, nails pressing just slightly against the old silvery scars that so captivated her from the beginning. Signs of steel, she had murmured, and sucked at each one. Her own skin was unblemished, perfect, and Fëanor wonders how she, and she alone, could show the perfection that the Valar could create.

Perhaps that is a blasphemy. But so it is that she moves him.

For all the aching in his cock, he knows that she will not take him until she is ready; his hands cup her breasts instead, thumbs teasing at her nipples, as her smile grows almost indulgent for him. It is its own torture when he knows that what pleases her most is that itself which she withholds from him, that she traps him so, but he supposes that it is of his own doing to bring her so close to her own climax, and deny her.

Artanis leans forwards into him, the weight of her breasts coming fully into his hand as she arcs over him. Her hands frame his head, her hair falling to the pillow beside him. Part of him fancies that he can smell it, beneath the sweat and soot of the forge.

“To whom do you belong, Fëanáro?” she murmurs. It sends a shiver down his spine; there are none who dare to speak to him so, not even his father. None save the Valar themselves, and were they to try to claim him he would take their tongues with blood and fury. But the words drip from Artanis’s lips and all that he can manage is a breathless sound, lips yearning for her lips, cock yearning for her cunt. “Tell me.”

“To you,” he breathes, and every time he speaks the words it feels like blasphemy and revelation on his tongue.

She kisses him even as she claims him, sheathing him as soundly and surely as only she has ever managed to. She does not cleave to him; she claims him, and she allows him to.

Her hips roll against him, all sinuous power that shines in the length of her thighs. One of her hands come to rest on his chest, pushing down hard enough to ache as she rises over him. More by her beauty than her strength is he pinned, though her strength alone would be enough, as shamelessly and ruthlessly she rides him.

With his hands he lauds her, the silk of her skin over the taut power of muscle beneath, the curve of her breasts in his palm, the slip of sweat that drips down the elegant curve of her spine. He is so close to climax that it aches within him, but he knows that the sensations are all the sweeter when he has seen Artanis peak, when he has felt her most tightly consume him.

“My Fëanáro,” she murmurs, tracing his lip with her thumb. Her nail scrapes his skin, but it is nothing to the burn of her eyes, like fire in the shadowed room, dangerous and beautiful and creator of things both dangerous and beautiful also. The blades of her making have their own elegance; to others, Fëanor can pass them off as his own, and Artanis will laugh at the deception. But they will always know which ones have known the touch of her hand. “How long have I held you rapt?”

“Since first I saw you,” he says.

The movement of her body increases, writing clearly that his answer pleases her. He tightens one hand on her thigh until the skin pales, and her smile is dark and beatific. She likes to carry his marks where none can see, his gifts to her that none need have knowledge of.

“I would say that I was sent for you… but I rather think that you were sent for me.” Her fingers trace up, then clench in his hair, so tightly that he hisses. The shock of pain sends a shudder down his body, and he bucks beneath her. “Would you not think so? After all, if the world could not bear you, what would it have thought of me…”

She is so beautiful that surely it must ire some of the Ainur themselves. Her body so honed and strong that she puts many of the athletes of her kin to shame. And in her mind, there is a dark clear cunning which most of all entrances him. Any one of Artanis’s gifts would have been enough to make her wondrous, but with all three together Fëanor cannot but be sure there is almost too much for this world to countenance.

His voice is tight, his yearning like fire in his throat. “If my role is to form a path for you, over land or through stars, I will do it.”

A groan leaves her, through those parted lips that have so often haunted him, and as he feels the muscles of her thighs tighten on his hips he lets his hand slip lower. His thumb finds her clit, hard against his hand and slick already with her pleasure, and with an approving growl her eyes fall closed as he teases his thumb against it.

“Fëanáro…” she moans, and ever since first he heard his name spoken so upon her lips – to the attentions of his mouth, that time, before he had dared more or she had told him how much she expected him to dare – it has thrilled him like no other sound.

He feels her climax build within her, in the feeling of her heat around him; he sees it, in the play of light over the muscles of her abdomen; he hears it in the hitch of her breath and the low sound she keeps muffled through will alone. In the forge, they need not take such care to be quiet; it is widely known that to interrupt Fëanor at his work is a foolish endeavour at best. But they have sought each other out at other times, in other places, and there it has been a necessity to grasp at each other in silence, lest they be discovered. It has become, not habit, but some enjoyable thing for them both.

With his thumb he works at her clit, that point of greater joy within the curls of light that so adorn Artanis’s form, until she gasps and bites at her lip as he feels her crash to ecstasy around him. She grinds against his hand, tightening around his cock, and the disarming beauty of her so disarmed is too much. Fëanor keeps his eyes upon her as with a muted grunt he spends, giving himself unto her, feeling them mingle in body as so many times before, as so many times they have in mind.

Then they are both panting, and Artanis bends to kiss him again, even as he softens inside her. Her mouth tastes of salt and desire, and eagerly he drinks of her, even when she flexes her muscles about him again to hear him whimper with sensations too strong.

“You do well by me, uncle,” she whispers on his lips, and his aching cock twitches afresh. The Valar have imposed upon Elves such rules, that those too closely akin should not be joined, and all have accepted such laws. Fëanor wonders whether it is to prevent a union too powerful, such as his would be with Artanis; from them, such a child could be born as would be terrible in their greatness. But Artanis has no desire for a child, and gladly he acquiesces to her. She nips his lip. “So very well you wrest such joy upon my body. What more do you think that you could draw from me this night?”

Never could he be satiated of her; if his cock he cannot offer, then still he has his hands and his mouth, as unto her he has proven so many, many times. But so ardently does he burn that he can already feel himself hardening again within her, as she rocks her hips and the mingling of them creeps down his thigh to mark afresh the bed that they have marked so oft before.

“All that you will give me,” he says, and loses himself to the promise of serving her.


End file.
